Sunday, October 28, 2012

The funds raised at the 1864 Metropolitan Fair supported the United States Sanitary Commission, an enormous civilian affiliate of the Union Army. The Sanitary Commission assumed many duties during the War.

Here men and women in Augusta (Georgia?)

hand out doughnuts to Union soldiers.

They acted somewhat like the USO in 20th century wars, giving soldiers beverages and refreshments.

This Philadelphia "saloon" adjacent to a soldier's hospital announced it's presence with a magnificent eagle sculpture. Volunteers gave soldiers a place to rest, socialize and drink non-alcoholic beverages.

The USCC also ran lodges---rehabilitation homes for convalescent soldiers.

Above a Lodge for Invalid Soldiers in Alexandria, Virginia.

And a Lodge in Washington.

The activities of the Sanitary Commission were well documented. The leaders realized that good public relations increased donations. In many of the photographs we see women, as in this photo of a field station in Fredericksburg.

Women were not at the very top of the organization but they were, as we might say, middle management throughout the country. In many of the photographs we also see crates and barrels full of materials headed for the hospitals and recovery lodges.

One of the major functions was coordinating donations for the hospitals, lodges, saloons and doughnut stops.

The Libary of Congress is the source for these photographs of the volunteer societies.
They have scanned many Civil War photos at a high resolution so you can open the TIFF files and examine the smallest details.

Click on this one and open the smaller TIFF file.http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/cwp2003000469/PP/
You can see so much in their faces. I am always interested in how each working woman found a solution to the hoop skirt dilemma. There is quite a range of circumference.

But Helen Augusta Blanchard received patents for what she called a zigzag or overseam attachment in the mid 1870s.

Here's one of her patent drawings for a stitch useful for joining knits.

Newspaper articles and a short 1897 biography said she ran a sewing machine company called the Blanchard Overseam Machine Company and got rich off these patents. Like other sewing machine inventors she probably made her money in patent royalties rather than in literally shipping machines.

She made the news at the end of the 19th century because of her unique position as a female inventor. One article actually said she was rich "beyond avarice," but Autumn Stanley for her book Mothers & Daughters of Invention found few records to confirm that. Blanchard's most important paper trail is in her patents which you can see at Google patents.

There was a time when Miss Helen Blanchard's name might not have been feted in the quilt world.

The 1950-1990 reaction to the zigzag attachment for the home machine could be called aesthetically limited.

Raw-edged polyester doubleknits lent

themselves nicely to the zigzag stitch.

But over the years stitchers have mastered the zigzag.

Better mechanisms built into the machine

And adjustable widths and lengths have gone a long way to making the zigzag stitch indispensible. We should also thank whoever invented the fusible innerfacing too. And then there's the glue stick. But the basics---the zigzagger demands

A toast to Helen A. Blanchard!

Here's the text of an 1888 news article syndicated by the Boston Globe.

A Maine Girl's Profitable Invention

The story of one Portland girl deserves to be
recounted. This is of Miss Helen Blanchard, now a resident of Philadelphia, who
was specially gifted, and who succeeded in a field commonly supposed to be open
only to the masculine intellect. She is of an inventive mind, and with a
passion for mechanical contrivance from her childhood. Naturally she was
foreordained to invent something, and she did it. The something or rather the
first thing she invented, was an attachment for sewing machines to sew
"over-and-over" stitches. The story that was told of her runs to the
effect that one day, while at work at a sewing machine, she got out of patience
with the way it worked, and in a passion kicked it over, with the remark that
she could make a better machine than that herself. Straightway, continued the
veracious chronicler, she proceeded to invent the "over-and-over"
attachment. In point of fact, the account thus given is largely a myth. Miss
Blanchard did not and does, not kick sewing machines, but she did very
decorously and properly, after long and careful study, invent the
"over-and-over" attachment, and obtained a patent on it. This laid
the foundation for the large fortune which it is pleasant to be able to say she
now enjoys. She owns large estates, a manufactory, and many patent rights. Her fortune,
royalties and income, without venturing statements accurate enough to be
impertinent, may be described In the fluent language of the divine novelist or
sensational reporter, as "beyond the wildest dream of avarice." She
earned it all herself. She had no assistance from any one, and hired money at
25 percent, to pay her first Patent Office fees.

1955 ad

See a preview of

Autumn Stanley's, Mothers
and Daughters of Invention: Notes for a Revised History of Technology at Google Books

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Making History: Quilts & Fabric From 1890-1970

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Borderland in Butternut & Blue

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America's Printed Fabrics: 1770-1890

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Encyclopedia of Applique

The Encyclopedia of Applique second edition. Click on the bookcover for more information about an eBook or a Print-On-Demand version. Or buy from my stock at my Etsy store above.

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Twenty traditional blocks to "Unravel the History of Quilts and Slavery." Click on the cover to buy an on-demand print edition.

CIVIL WAR SAMPLER: 50 Quilt Blocks

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EMPORIA ROSE

Challenging Applique from the heart of quilt country. Click to see more at C&T Publishing.

THE GARDEN QUILT: Interpreting a Masterpiece

More masterpiece applique from Ilyse Moore and me. Click on the cover to read more.

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Borderland in Butternut and Blue

A Block of the Month featuring patterns and stories recalling the Civil War in the west. Click on the cover to see more.

Prairie Flower: A Year on the Plains

Block of the month: Original applique patterns recalling the landscape of the westward migration.

Flora Botanica Museum Catalog

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